It was ten o'clock the next day, a silent gray day, when Aunt Kate let
herself into the apartment, and "let out," to use her own phrase, a
startled exclamation at finding her young daughter-in-law deeply asleep
in her bed. Norma, a vision of cloudy dark tumbled hair and beautiful
sleepy blue eyes, half-strangled the older woman in a rapturous embrace,
and explained that she had come home the night before, and eaten the
chicken stew, and perhaps overslept--at any rate would love some coffee.
Something faintly shadowed in her aunt's welcome, however, was
immediately apparent, and Norma asked, with a trace of anxiety, if
Rose's babies were well. For answer her aunt merely asked if Wolf had
telephoned.
"Wolf!" said Wolf's wife. "Is he home?"
"My dear," Mrs. Sheridan said. "He's going--he's gone!--to California!"
Norma did not move. But the colour went out of her face, and the
brightness from her eyes.
"Gone!" she whispered.
"Well--he goes to-day! At six o'clock----"
"At six o'clock!" Norma leaped from her bed, stood with clenched hands
and wild eyes, thinking, in the middle of the floor. "It's twenty-two
minutes past ten," she breathed. "Where does he leave?"
"Rose and I were to see him at the Grand Central at quarter past five,"
his mother began, catching the contagious excitement. "But, darling, I
don't know where you can get him before that!--Here, let me do that,"
she added, for Norma had dashed into the kitchen, and was measuring
coffee recklessly. A brown stream trickled to the floor.
"Oh, Lord--Lord--help me to get hold of him somewhere!" she heard Norma
breathe. "And you weren't going to let me know--but it's my fault," she
said, putting her hands over her face, and rocking to and fro in
desperate suspense. "Oh, how can I get him?--I must! Oh, Aunt
Kate--_help me_! Oh, I'm not even dressed--and that clock says half-past
ten! Aunt Kate, will you help me!"
"Norma, my darling," her aunt said, arresting the whirling little figure
with a big arm, and looking down at her with all the love and sadness of
her great heart in her face, "why do you want to see him, dear? He told
me--he had to tell his mother, poor boy, for his heart is broken--that
you were not going with him!"
"Oh, but Aunt Kate--he'll have to wait for me!" Norma said, stamping a
slippered foot, and beginning to cry with hurt and helplessness. "Oh,
won't you help me? You always help me! Don't--don't mind what I said to
Wolf; you know how silly I am! But please--_please_----"
"But, Baby--you're sure?" Mrs. Sheridan asked, feeling as if ice that
had been packed about her heart for days was breaking and stirring, and
as if the exquisite pain of it would kill her. "Don't--hurt him again,
Norma!"
"But he's going off--without me," Norma wailed, rushing to the bathroom,
and pinning her magnificent mass of soft dark hair into a stern knob for
her bath. "Aunt Kate, I've always loved Wolf, always!" she said,
passionately. "And if he really had gone away without me I think it
would have broken my heart! You _know_ how I love him! We'll catch him
somewhere, I know we will! We'll telephone--or else Harry----"
She trailed into the kitchen half-dressed, ten minutes later.
"I've telephoned for a taxi, Aunt Kate, and we'll find him somewhere,"
she said, gulping hot coffee appreciatively. "I must--I've something to
tell him. But I'll have to tell you everything in the cab. To begin
with--it's all over. I'm done with the Melroses. I appreciate all they
did for me, and I appreciate your worrying and planning about that old
secret. But I've made up my mind. Whatever you have of letters, and
papers and proofs, I want you please to do the family a last favour by
burning--every last shred. I've told Chris, I won't touch a cent of the
money, except what Aunt Marianna left me; and I never, never, never
intend to say one more word on the subject! Thousands didn't make me
happy, so why should a million? The best thing my father ever did for me
was to give my mother a chance to bring me here to you!"
She had gotten into her aunt's lap as she spoke, and was rubbing her
cheek against the older, roughened cheek, and punctuating her
conversation with little kisses. Mrs. Sheridan looked at her, and
blinked, and seemed to find nothing to say.
"Perhaps some day when it's hot--and the jelly doesn't jell--and the
children break the fence," pursued Norma, "I will be sorry! I haven't
much sense, and I may feel that I've been a fool. But then I just want
you to remind me of Leslie--and the Craigies--or better, of what a beast
I am myself in that atmosphere! So it's all over, Aunt Kate, and if
Wolf will forgive me--and he always does----"
"He's bitterly hurt this time, Nono," said her aunt, gently.
Norma looked a little anxious.
"I wrote him in Philadelphia," she said, "but he won't get that letter.
Oh, Aunt Kate--if we don't find him! But we will--if I have to walk up
to him in the station the last minute--and stop him----"
"Ah, Norma, you love him!" his mother said, in a great burst of
thankfulness. "And may God be thanked for all His goodness! That's all I
care about--that you love him, and that you two will be together again.
We'll get hold of him, dear, somehow----!"
"But, my darling," she added, coming presently to the bedroom door to
see the dashing little feathered hat go on, and the dotted veil pinned
with exquisite nicety over Norma's glowing face, and the belted brown
coat and loose brown fur rapidly assumed, "you're not wearing your
mourning!"
"Not to-day," Norma said, abstractedly. And aloud she read a list:
"Bank; Grand Central; drawing-room; new suit-case; notary for power of
attorney; Kitty Barry; telephone Chris, Leslie, Annie; telephone Regina
about trunks. Can we be back here at say--four, Aunt Kate?"
"But what's all that for?" her aunt asked, dazedly.
Norma looked at a check book; put it in her coat pocket. Then as her
aunt's question reached her preoccupied mind, she turned toward her with
a puzzled expression.
"Why, Aunt Kate--you don't seem to understand; I'm going with Wolf to
California this evening."